Environmental Medicine News

The News Review:

- Museums - washingtonpost.com
- Predicting the relevance of genetic mutations
- The Ashley Treatment: A big decision for a little girl
- New Guidelines For Assessing Lymphoma Treatment
- A Full Body of Reality

Museums - washingtonpost.com
Washington Post - Jan 26, 2007
Fourth and Constitution NW. 202-737-4215 (TDD: 202-842-6176). NATURAL HISTORY"Orchids: Take a Walk on the Wild Side," Saturday through April 22. Continuing: "Nature’s Best 2006 Photography Awards," through March 25; "Visual Griots: Mutual Understanding Through the Art of Photography," through May 12. Open indefinitely: "African Voices"; "Forces of Change: Global Links, El Niño’s Powerful Reach"; "Frozen in Time: The Iceman"; "Life in the Ancient Seas"; "Native Alaskan Cultures"; "T-Rex"; Kenneth E. Behring Hall of Mammals; Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals; Discovery Center; Orkin Insect Zoo. Open daily 10 to 7:30… Fourth and Independence SW. 202-633-1000 (TDD: 202-357-1729). NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CIVIL WAR MEDICINE"Building on the Past: Military Medicine for the 21st Century"; "Nurses of the Civil War"; "The Art of Embalming the Dead During the American Civil War. " Permanent exhibits of medical equipment, photographs, camp re-creations and memorabilia related to medical care during the Civil War. Open Monday-Saturday 10 to 4, Sunday 11 to 4. 50; $6 seniors; $4.

Predicting the relevance of genetic mutations
DrugResearcher.com - Jan 26, 2007
The database can be used to give a theoretical probability of which changes in the genome sequence could cause disease and whether such changes need further clinical investigation. Personalised medicine has long been a goal of both the pharmaceutical industry and clinicians. Genetic mutations can cause diseases or prevent one individual responding to medication that works well with others. In order to effectively diagnose and treat each patient, it is crucial to determine which genetic mutations occur regularly and what, exactly, those mutations do. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is a DNA sequence variation where just one nucleotide in the genome differs between individuals. SNPs make up around 90 per cent of all human genetic variations and can occur anywhere on the genome… There is a vast amount of real life data from Biomedical researchers on the genetic influences of disease. However, it is difficult to determine how the structure of a protein might change if its amino acids are mutated or how this could affect its function. Instead, data of this nature is predicted using computer models. The PolyDoms tool combines the results from biological and theoretical research to give a complete picture of genetic mutation. “PolyDoms is part of a new wave of informatic resources that we and others in the computational biology community are developing to expedite and advance research in personalised, predictive and preventive medicine,” said Dr Bruce Aronow, co-director of the Computational Medicine Centre. “At every stage our goals are to improve understanding, to decrease risk of disease and to improve the care and health for each individual,” he continued. MORE NEWS ARTICLES ON THIS SUBJECT.

The Ashley Treatment: A big decision for a little girl
Daily - University of Washington - Jan 26, 2007
Truly a milestone in our convenience-minded society. When I first heard about the story, I was also very upset. While science has provided us with countless advantages, especially in medicine, scientists are merely human and make their fair share of blunders, misdiagnoses, for instance, being among them. Additionally, among the vast majority of reliable and respectable physicians are some amoral doctors who can lie to patients or misrepresent the truth in order to further their own aims, such as the case with David Reimer who was raised as a girl in an experiment by Dr. John Money, who theorized that gender was due to how the child is raised rather than genetic coding (he was found to be wrong). But after reading everything I could on the issue, I have come to the conclusion that Ashley’s parents made the right decision. Now, I’m a conservative who was disgusted over the fate of Terry Schiavo.

New Guidelines For Assessing Lymphoma Treatment
Medical News Today - Jan 26, 2007
, professor of medicine at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Hospital, is senior author of the paper and led the IHP effort. Integration of PET represents a major change in the guidelines. , associate professor of radiology at the UI Roy J… The most commonly used PET radiotracer is fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a radiolabeled form of glucose, which is consumed more avidly by tumors than by normal tissue. In contrast to conventional computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), PET is able to distinguish between viable tumor and non-cancerous scar tissue that is often left behind after successful treatment of lymphoma. Incorporation of PET imaging into response assessment means that doctors can more accurately determine the nature of any residual mass and essentially rule out persistent cancer within the mass if the scan is PET-negative. This approach will allow researchers to accurately assess how well anti-lymphoma drugs work even when there is a residual mass at the tumor site following treatment. Adoption of the revised guidelines is expected to have major implications for patient management, says Juweid. “Many patients with either diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), which is the most common subtype of lymphoma, or Hodgkin’s disease, who were previously considered in partial response to treatment based on the conventional assessment, will now be considered in complete response if their PET scan is negative. Such patients can be safely observed and are expected to have an excellent outcome,” Juweid said.

A Full Body of Reality
Washington Post - Jan 26, 2007
She was then fitted with an awkward wooden leg, the first of an uncomfortable many. Here’s how she dealt with it. In 1980, when she was only 6, Rapp writes, “I was chosen as the March of Dimes poster child for the Medicine Bow chapter of Albany County, Wyoming. There were posters of me on the walls of Slade Elementary School… I even thought, for a long time, that it would be easy. “Ideal American feminine beauty is, as we know, a very strange thing. By nature, the look can never last for long. (Even Paris Hilton’s nose runs when she has a cold. ) But out in Laramie, Rapp embarked upon the elusive project of achieving perfect beauty. She would romance the crowd; she would pass as normal, only more so; gorgeous, only more so. No matter that she had bad eyesight, crooked teeth and a series of legs that dragged and twisted and leaked oil when their hinges acted up.